The Shaman
by ShinyShiny9
Summary: There is a one, recognized by few, who brings the rain and tends the dewfall. To this great one all must turn when droughts or storms plague them, and he intercedes on their behalf, channeling ancient powers far beyond mortal ken. He is the shaman - and all of Mobius lies in his debt.


**A/N: This one was inspired by a discussion on the weather thread at Kelviniana. Kinda good for today, no?**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Sonic and Co.!**

* * *

Mobius sizzled under a suffocating blanket of summer heat. Rain had not fallen for untold weeks, and the plants were slowly dying, in twos and threes.

One of the most desolate locales was a broad plain, formerly covered in gently rippling grass, but now bristling with brittle stalks of straw, barely a hint of green glinting at their bases. Along the far side of this parched field, a small wave of dust was billowing into the air and settling back down behind a rapidly moving object.

This object happened to be Sonic the Hedgehog, who was pounding down a footpath he often traveled, trying not to look at the desiccated landscape. Green Hill was starting to look more orange; even his red sneakers were turning dust-colored as they flew over the cracked earth.

"Tails!" he shouted, as soon as he drew in sight of a familiar workshop. The call reached Tails' ears just as Sonic reached Tails' door. He peered into the large garage-like space, noticing the little red biplane and the little yellow fox perched on a ladder beside it.

"Hi Sonic," said Tails, with much less than his usual enthusiasm. Sonic's face fell at once.

"It didn't work?"

Tails shook his head and waved silently at the Tornado. Stepping farther into the workshop, Sonic saw that the rear half of the biplane was coated with a lumpy glaze of ice, some of it rapidly melting in the summer heat and dripping water all over the workshop floor.

"I tried," said Tails sadly. "There were enough clouds today that seeding them should have worked. I did all the calculations! But the minute I got up there with the load of dry ice, all the moisture just froze right onto the body of the plane." He sighed in defeat. "I just can't understand why it wouldn't work . . . there's enough moisture up there to coat the entire Tornado in ice, but it just won't come down _here_."

"You tried, Tails," said Sonic staunchly. "Come on, you said yourself even the professionals don't have much luck!"

Tails shrugged, still looking glum. Seeming to remember something, he glanced up at Sonic.

"How about you? Did you have any luck?"

"Nope." Sonic chuckled bitterly. "I went all over the place, they're all experiencing the same drought. About the only place where it's still raining is all the jungles, but they're not going to be able to provide water for everyone—even if we could carry that much."

"What are we going to do, Sonic?" asked Tails. His wide blue eyes turned towards the workshop door, gazing at the shimmering waves of heat outside. "What if it never rains again?"

"It will, little buddy. It has to," said Sonic.

Tails was about to say something else, but suddenly he stopped and pointed into the distance.

"What's that?"

Sonic squinted and saw a small reddish speck moving slowly along the horizon.

"Knuckles?" he said, disbelieving. "Why would he leave the Master Emerald?"

"Something serious must be going on!" said Tails, already heading for the door. "Let's go see!"

They soon caught up to what was indeed Knuckles, trudging stolidly along and looking hot and bothered. He glanced up, stopped, and nodded a greeting as Sonic and Tails ran up to him.

"Yo Knuckles! What're you doing down here?" asked Sonic. Little puffs of dust danced around his feet as he slid to a halt.

"The drought started to hit Angel Island," said Knuckles, taking off his cowboy hat and swiping sweat from his forehead. "Usually things are a lot wetter up there, since it's so close to the clouds. I didn't even know anything was wrong until yesterday, when things started drying out." He looked grimly around at the parched plant life. "It's even worse down here. I hadn't known."

"Yeah." Sonic grimaced. "So then, did you just come here to enjoy the desert scenery? I could think of nicer views . . . "

"No, no," said Knuckles, jamming his hat back on and switching to businesslike mode. "I came here to do something about it."

"Do something? What?" asked Tails eagerly.

"I came to speak to the weather shaman," replied Knuckles. "He'll know what to do."

Sonic and Tails looked at each other. Then Sonic leaned forward and tapped Knuckles' forehead gingerly.

"You got heatstroke already, Knucklehead?"

"You don't know about the weather shaman?!" Knuckles looked aghast. "I thought everyone knew, I was wondering why nobody had tried speaking to him yet."

"What weather shaman?" asked Sonic. "They even have those?"

"Don't you at least know the ancient legend of the Great Frog?!" demanded Knuckles.

Sonic and Tails looked at each other again, then back to Knuckles, shaking their heads.

"Ohhh, I'm going to have to do something about this," groaned Knuckles, rubbing his forehead. "Come on you two, follow me. We can all search, and I'll tell you the story as we go along."

This was the story that Knuckles told:

* * *

_Long, long ago, in the earliest days of Mobius, there lived very few creatures. There was only one of each kind, but this one was enormous, the father or mother of an entire species. And among all these, the Great Frog was one of the mightiest._

_The Great Frog lived mostly alone, keeping dominion over his favorite little patch of land. However, he soon saw that the other creatures on Mobius were not as happy as he._

_"What ails you, Sister Bear?" asked the Great Frog one day, seeing the Great Bear wandering by with her head low._

_"Oh, Frog my brother, we are all suffering," said the Great Bear. "We find nothing to drink all day, and our throats burn from the heat and the dust of the land. We shall all perish, if we do not find water soon."_

_Now, this troubled the Great Frog. He began to travel all across the planet, in great leaping bounds, visiting all the other creatures. He found that they all suffered from great thirst, and this troubled him more and more._

_At last, returning to his own patch of land, he decided that he would do something to remedy this problem. He sat for a day, and he sat for a week, and he sat for a month, and he tried and tried to call down water for the land. At last, after a month and four days, he succeeded. Water fell from the sky for the first time, replenishing the earth with sweet, life-giving rain for the creatures to drink._

_Thus the Great Frog became the master of Mobius's weather. His joy brought the gentle showers, his passion the hurricanes, his anger the drought or the lashing storm. For a long time he travelled around Mobius, bringing rain to all. His prestige grew much, and the other creatures revered him almost as a ruler._

_But gradually, some of the animals began to grumble among themselves._

_"Why must we always wait for the Great Frog to bring us the rain?" complained the Great Camel. "Why can we not have water when we want it, instead of depending on his whims?"_

_"Speaking of whims, my brother," added the Great Scorpion. "Why must we always tolerate his moods and vagaries, huddling under shelter like cowards when he fancies he'd like a storm?"_

_Several other creatures agreed; the sand shrew, the rattlesnake, the sandfly, zebra, lion, and giraffe. The hyena and wildebeest and llama soon joined the angry throng, all complaining about the Great Frog's control of the weather._

_Some of the other animals tried to warn them._

_"You are only making trouble for yourselves!" they insisted. "You live comfortably now, with water whenever you need it__—do not risk losing what you have gained!"_

_But there was no calming the dissenters. At last they all went to see the Great Frog, bringing their grievances. The complaining carried on for quite a while; the Great Frog grew grimmer and grimmer._

_"My friends," he said, when they had finally calmed down. "Have you been suffering from thirst?"_

_"No, Brother Frog, but__—"_

_"Have you ever found that I do not bring rain to you in due time?"_

_"Always in time, Brother Frog, but we wish to have it when we__—"_

_"Do I plague you with storms unfairly, and do I not warn you beforehand when the rain is to be heavy? Do I not do what I can to keep your thirsts quenched? Do I treat you any differently from the other creatures on this planet?" asked the Great Frog, puffing up wrathfully with each sentence._

_There was a silence. The creatures all shuffled slightly in place, wondering if they should continue their complaints. Suddenly, from the very back, the sandfly spoke up._

_"What we really mean, Brother Frog," he piped in his thin voice, "is that we would much prefer if you gave control of the rain over to us."_

_At this the Great Frog became enraged._

_"If you ask too much, you shall receive none!" he bellowed. "Greedy creatures, may your children and your children's children be punished throughout eternity!"_

_And that is why, to this day, the deserts do not receive rain. The anger of the frog burns lengthily._

_Now, after many years, most of the animals on Mobius had multiplied, spreading their kind throughout the world. The Great Frog himself had many children, all of them smaller than himself, but still larger than most of the frogs we know today. Eventually the Great Frog died, and his children and grandchildren carried on the legacy of rain-bringing._

_Of course, as the number of frogs grew, dissent broke out among them. Some of them enjoyed their rain-giving powers so immensely that they refused to stop, and went leaping around the planet bringing floods and despair. Their frog brethren tried to reason with them, but they refused to listen._

_At last, to prevent an angry uprising against all of frog-kind, the other frogs sent the rebellious factions to exile in certain parts of Mobius. The rebels themselves were all too happy to break away from the rest of their species; they never even bothered to become small and innocuous-looking like the rest of the frog race. Revelling in their power, they held dominion over the rainforests; you can still see them in places like Frog Forest and Lost Jungle, to this day._

_And all the rest carries on today as well, as it did then. The frogs travel the world, communicating with the spirit of the Great Frog to bring the rain to the land. When he is displeased, or grows forgetful in his spiritly old age, there may be a drought. But most of the time, he and all the other frog spirits rule kindly and wisely, seeing to it that all the world receives its fair and proper share of rain._

* * *

The story ended. Knuckles pulled his hat down lower over his eyes and continued walking. Sonic and Tails digested the tale in silence for a while.

"So you're saying we're having this drought just because the Frog Prince is mad at us?" said Sonic at last.

"Great Frog," corrected Knuckles. "And he may not be angry, he may just have been a bit forgetful."

"A _bit_," said Sonic drily, kicking at a withered dandelion.

"But what does all of this have to do with a weather shaman?" asked Tails.

"Well, sometimes the weather needs a bit of fine-tuning," explained Knuckles. "Like now, say. In desperate cases, we common creatures on Mobius depend on the weather shaman to intercede for us. He acts as an intermediary, pleading our case to the spirit of the Great Frog."

"Cool," remarked Sonic. "So, what's he like?"

"I thought you knew him," said Knuckles reproachfully. "He's—Ahh! There he is!"

Knuckles broke into a trot, heading towards a familiar figure. Sonic and Tails stared at each other, then after Knuckles.

"_Big?!_"

When they caught up to the echidna, he was already poking at Big, who was leaning against a tree and dozing. He seemed to be quite resistent to poking, for that matter. Froggy watched from a distance, his froggish eyes disapproving as usual.

"You've got to be kidding," said Sonic. "Knuckles, that's _Big the Cat._ He hangs around in the wilds fishing all the time!"

"Of course he does," retorted Knuckles. "Weather shamans have to live a life of solitude, in order to properly communicate with the spirits of the frogs. And why do you think he spends so much time fishing? He has to stay by bodies of water, so he can gauge how the rain supply is doing!"

"Oh, for Pete's sake," groaned Sonic. "And what's Froggy, his mystical link to the world of frog spirits?"

"Exactly," replied Knuckles. He finally managed to prod Big into wakefulness. The big cat yawned cavernously and toppled upright, smacking his lips. He blinked at Knuckles silently for a moment.

"Hewwo," he intoned at last, in his deep voice.

"Big," said Knuckles, pulling off his hat respectfully. "We need your help. Mobius is having the worst kind of drought."

Big processed this information for a while.

"The fishing stream is still full," he said slowly at last.

Knuckles glanced at the stream in question, scratching his head.

"You're right . . . I wonder why."

"That stream feeds directly from the mountains," put in Sonic lazily. "What with the summer heat, there's probably a lot of melting snow keeping it full, even though everything else is drying up."

"I didn't know that," remarked Big, sounding mildly intrigued as he gazed at the stream with his wide goggling eyes.

"Big," said Knuckles. "Believe me, everywhere else there is a drought. It's really bad. Do you think you could try to do something about it?"

Big said nothing, and gave no indication that he had heard Knuckles at all. He settled down by the water's edge and swished his fishing rod back and forth a few times. Sonic and Tails watched somewhat skeptically, Knuckles trustingly. Big continued to fish for a few moments, stirring the water with his foot.

Eventually his line jerked, and he pulled it out of the water. A ragged boot dangled from the hook, spewing water from various holes in its leather. Big surveyed it solemnly.

"It's the omen," Knuckles whispered to the others. "He tests the waters to see if what I say is true."

"And that shoe is telling him what? . . . " Sonic whispered back.

Knuckles waved for him to be silent as Big suddenly heaved himself to his feet.

"Come on, Fwoggy," he remarked, and stepped ponderously into the shallow stream water. He waded gravely out to the center and attempted to pick Froggy up from the rock he'd been sunbathing on. The frog, however, gave an annoyed ribbet and sprang to the opposite bank.

"No, Fwoggy!" protested Big, wading after him. When he reached the opposite bank, Froggy croaked irately and took off in earnest, leaping swiftly off into the wild blue yonder.

"No! Fwoggy! Come baaaaaack!" wailed Big, thundering off in pursuit. Knuckles watched, his face grim.

"Ohhhhh . . . The spirits are uncommunicative."

Tails and Sonic looked at each other glumly.

"Hoh boy," sighed Sonic, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his palm. "Okay. That was different. Very . . . different. Guess we'd better get back to thinking now, Tails."

"He'll work it out, don't worry!" assured Knuckles. "The frog spirits have been restless before. He'll communicate with them all night if he has to, I'm sure he'll win them over eventually."

"Uh-huh, okay," said Sonic absently, hopping across the stream and turning towards home, Tails hovering alongside. "So Tails, got any last-ditch ideas?"

"Well, I was thinking of trying the cloud seeding again, with silver iodide . . . "

"Oh, you just wait and see!" Knuckles called after them crossly. "The weather shaman always pulls through, always!"

That night, the chorus of frogs across Mobius was unusually loud—or perhaps it just seemed that way, to those preconditioned to notice. Knuckles paced silently by the Master Emerald, his footsteps mirroring the tread of another, far below. Large purple feet padded back and forth at the edge of a marsh, its size severely decreased due to lack of water. A soft humming seemed to fill the air, although its source was untraceable. Eerie lights flickered and frogs trilled rhythmically from the stands of rushes, as the pacing figure stopped and gazed up at the sky silently, unblinkingly.

There were clouds creeping slowly over the stars.

* * *

The next morning, Tails got up early to start phoning chemical companies to see if anyone stocked silver iodide. He stumbled across his room and haphazardly ran a hairbrush over the scruff of fur on top of his head, a little too preoccupied to care if he was making it better or worse. He was just about finished when he suddenly registered a rattling murmuring sound in the background. Eyes widening, he slowly laid down the hairbrush.

Seconds later, the front door crashed open and Tails came bounding out.

"It's raining! It's actually raining!" he hollered to Sonic, who was grinning gamely at the weather from underneath the safety of a tree.

"Yeah, it . . . definitely is." Sonic winced as a water droplet worked its way through the tree leaves and plopped between his ears. "Definitely."

Tails grinned, the rain plastering his bangs down to his forehead.

"How long do you think it's going to keep up?"

"As long as it needs to," cut in another voice. Knuckles came sloshing up, the brim of his cowboy hat dripping steadily. "The weather's been set straight now, from the looks of it. The rain should stop when it reaches the right levels."

"Where are you heading, Knux?" asked Sonic, surprised. It wasn't like Knuckles to leave his island twice in two days. Knuckles only gestured at the box tucked under his arm.

"The weather shaman set things right, so it's only fair to thank him. I'm going to bring him this new set of fishing tackle."

Nodding his goodbyes, he set out in search of Big. Sonic and Tails looked after him for a moment, then glanced at each other.

"Hey Knuckles, wait for us!"

Meanwhile, by a different creek now, Big sat fishing. The rain pattering on his head didn't bother him, nor did it bother his small green companion. He could see that the plants were already starting to perk up slightly, and that the creek level was rising steadily. Smiling knowingly at the glistening-wet world, he reached down to pat Froggy on the head.


End file.
